The stuff with Poe is a bit like that time in ASoIaF where Robb Stark doesn't tell any of his subordinates his battle plan, then flips his lid when one of them does something entirely predictable and in character which inadvertently ruins said plan. Except that time the whole purpose was to illustrate his inexperience at managing his people.

Poe appears to be a known Maverick With A Hero Complex Who Doesn't Play By Your Rules; and one who enjoys the respect of a lot of the other members of the Resistance. I mean sure, he is in a military of sorts and should be following the directives of his superior; but if she'd at least hinted there was a plan other than 'sit here and wait to die' he might not have done what he did.

I saw this this afternoon. I enjoyed it, not as much as I enjoyed Rogue One but still good. The technical bits...eh, I can forgive weirdness like that in the name of a compelling story/characters (like how I overlook the weirdness of Space: 1999, Thunderbirds or Doctor Who).

I will point out that the "ships lose fuel and immediately start slowing" is not what's happening. Their engines shut down, so they aren't still accelerating like the cruiser, which mean the pursuing ships can catch up. Because the FO ships and the cruiser are apparently accelerating at the same rate, it looks like the light ships lose power and slow, but that's just a visual thing.

Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."

Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.

The dice were hanging in the Falcon's cockpit since ANH. They were never pointed out as super important, but they were absolutely there all along.

Also, I don't understand the complaints about the gravity bombs "in space". They were over a planet, remember, not in deep space, and under thrust the whole time, not orbiting stably. Yes, if you are over a planet under thrust, and you drop something, it will in fact fall toward the planet. That's how gravity works.

The ship will drop towards the planet at the same rate toward as the things on it.

In orbit there is microgravity not because the space station/capsule is completely away from all planets, but because everything aboard is falling toward the planet at the same rate, this is why we call it freefall.

That's if the bombers were in orbit, which they aren't. They're over a planet, but they aren't orbiting the planet. The physics of objects released from such a craft are essentially identical to those governing bombs falling out of a bomber at any altitude. All that is necessary is that some of the Resistance bombers' thrust be directed downward to counteract the gravity of the planet. On a B-52, that's the lift from the wing. On a Resistance bomber, it could just be some vectored thrust from the main engines.

I don't think you've done any sort of math to back that assertion about the strength of planetary gravity. Assuming an Earth-like planet, the gravitational force at 2,000 km above the surface is still ~60% of the force at the surface. Earth's moon orbits at nearly 400,000 km, and is still quite securely bound gravitationally to Earth.

You're right, I haven't done the math. The use case for a space weapons system that relies on planetary gravity against targets directly beneath it seems rather narrow. If the bombs were being mag/grav forced out of the bomb bay then at least they are projectile weapons.

The thought occurs that maybe they were designed as ground-support craft that Poe repurposed for his hairbrained scheme.

Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."

Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.

As debatably stupid as the bomb deployment is, perhaps they are purely explosives. They forgo any propulsion to have the maximum destructive yield per volume, and rely on the superfortress analog to throw them into the target with magnetic or gravitic stuff.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

But why would they put that there, nothing in the movie requires the remote location, quite the opposite. Back in the day Geonosis, Tatooine and Naboo ended so close to each other for the plot to make sense, are they putting planets on the map randomly now?

No, before it took weeks to cross the galaxy. Now it takes hours. This is a major change. First Order reinforcements could have come from anywhere in the galaxy. Starfighters are even more capital ship killers simply because they can operate out of bases fucking anywhere. This makes the "stateless" tactic uncombatable. It has fucked everything up.

If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.
--Mace

The Old Testament has as much validity for the foundation of a religion as the pattern my recent case of insect bites formed on my ass.
--Solauren

No, before it took weeks to cross the galaxy. Now it takes hours. This is a major change. First Order reinforcements could have come from anywhere in the galaxy. Starfighters are even more capital ship killers simply because they can operate out of bases fucking anywhere. This makes the "stateless" tactic uncombatable. It has fucked everything up.

You think Anakin/Vader spent 'weeks' on Mustafar ("On the outer rim") after being set on fire while Palpatine flew to rescue him from Coruscant? It's always been hours.

A new canon book "A New Hope: The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy" also reconfirms that the Ep IV trip from Tatooine to Alderaan is 'a few hours.'

That's if the bombers were in orbit, which they aren't. They're over a planet, but they aren't orbiting the planet. The physics of objects released from such a craft are essentially identical to those governing bombs falling out of a bomber at any altitude. All that is necessary is that some of the Resistance bombers' thrust be directed downward to counteract the gravity of the planet. On a B-52, that's the lift from the wing. On a Resistance bomber, it could just be some vectored thrust from the main engines.

Except the ships were boosting up from the planet with it behind them, so their momentum would at the very least keep the bombs traveling upward toward the apogee of their ballistic arc (assuming the ships hadn't achieved an orbital velocity) which would result in the bombs... continuing in roughly the same direction of travel as the ship.

The momentum they'd used to thrust away from D'qar doesn't go away. While yes, the bomber will continue to accelerate after the bombs leave it, they will both be traveling upward relative to D'qar still until the bombs hit the apogee of whatever ballistic arc they're on. They need to be spring-loaded, essentially.

D'qar is behind them, not below them.

Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth

Finn's side quest was literally on the other side of the Galaxy from the main plot:

And clearly the film creators fucked up their math. They state they're 4 parsecs away about 10 minutes before they drop out, which would indicate a hyperspace speed of 2.5 million. That would imply their trip took two weeks (which would make sense of the relativistic issues, but probably not). And that wasn't even that difficult to fucking fix. Just say 400 parsecs instead, none of the audience members would complain, and you'd have remotely correct numbers.

"There is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky.

But they don't have to! WE care! There IS light in the world, and it is US!"

Or ships decelerate for their final approach before coming out of hyperspace.

Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth

If we're still on the subject of mysterious black space orb bombs, this is a universe with repulsor technology. It's entirely possible those bombs were self-propelled by reactionless means. You can literally come up with any answer. They don't seem any less self-propelled than 90 degree turning photon torpedos are.

If we're still on the subject of mysterious black space orb bombs, this is a universe with repulsor technology. It's entirely possible those bombs were self-propelled by reactionless means. You can literally come up with any answer. They don't seem any less self-propelled than 90 degree turning photon torpedos are.

This is of course, correct.

The aesthetic choices made by the content-creators however, are deliberately evocative of free-fall bombs.

This is why it has come up in the conversations about the film that I have seen on this board, on other boards, on chat channels, and in real-life even with nongeeks. Design matters to build suspension of disbelief, a storytelling tool; I find that making things look incongruous makes them look laughable.

Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth

You think Anakin/Vader spent 'weeks' on Mustafar ("On the outer rim") after being set on fire while Palpatine flew to rescue him from Coruscant? It's always been hours.

A new canon book "A New Hope: The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy" also reconfirms that the Ep IV trip from Tatooine to Alderaan is 'a few hours.'

No, I think Sidious, who was prescient, came to Mustafar early and waited for Kenobi to leave.

Anyway, Roleplaying Game, canon during time period "always", put the travel time at weeks or days between major worlds.

Too old? ICS gave the ARC-170 five days supplies for a maximum range of five thousand light years. At class 1.5 hyperdrive, mind you. For a space superiority fighter, that's a lot of wasted space if it could only be in hyperspace for an hour or two.

If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.
--Mace

The Old Testament has as much validity for the foundation of a religion as the pattern my recent case of insect bites formed on my ass.
--Solauren

If we're still on the subject of mysterious black space orb bombs, this is a universe with repulsor technology. It's entirely possible those bombs were self-propelled by reactionless means. You can literally come up with any answer. They don't seem any less self-propelled than 90 degree turning photon torpedos are.

This is of course, correct.

The aesthetic choices made by the content-creators however, are deliberately evocative of free-fall bombs.

This is why it has come up in the conversations about the film that I have seen on this board, on other boards, on chat channels, and in real-life even with nongeeks. Design matters to build suspension of disbelief, a storytelling tool; I find that making things look incongruous makes them look laughable.

I think it's important to strike some balance between harking back to WW2 films and actually taking some physics into account. I'm not sure if the new directors got the memo. I feel like the "rule of cool" has been taken to some extreme by the younger director.

Humans are such funny creatures. We are selfish about selflessness, yet we can love something so much that we can hate something.

No, I think Sidious, who was prescient, came to Mustafar early and waited for Kenobi to leave.

No.

Vader turns around, and Padme's ship is shown coming in to land on the screen behind him. At that point, Palpatine is in his office. They have just conversed real time, meaning that neither message was pre-recorded.

Swords are drawn on the platform outside, then that fight is intercut with Yoda vs Palpatine, definitively establishing that they are both simultaneous events.

Anyway, Roleplaying Game, canon during time period "always", put the travel time at weeks or days between major worlds.

Too old? ICS gave the ARC-170 five days supplies for a maximum range of five thousand light years. At class 1.5 hyperdrive, mind you. For a space superiority fighter, that's a lot of wasted space if it could only be in hyperspace for an hour or two.

Your sources aren't canon, mine are. That said, should you be interested the ICS gives Palpatine's shuttle a limited range. I asked Curtis about that around the time it was published and he mentioned that he believes Palpatine boarded an offscreen capital ship to go to Mustafar.

Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth